Ukraine Froze Manafort Probes Amid US Weapons Sales

Ukraine’s chief prosecutor froze four pending investigations into President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort as the U.S. finalized a weapons sale to the Eastern European country.

Those cases were put into the “long-term box,” one Ukrainian lawmaker, Volodymyr Ariev, told The New York Times, so as to avoid upsetting President Trump, who has bristled publicly and privately at special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials,” Ariev told the Times. “We shouldn’t spoil relations with the administration.”